Insufficient signs and inconsistent behaviour: where the Inspector’s report goes wrong (2)

The main reason the Inspector gives for rejecting the applications is to do with the Avon County Council signs, based on his interpretation of the Winterburn case. But, in his final Note, the Inspector now admits that he may have misinterpreted the Winterburn case, by assuming that the signs were effective despite our evidence that the Council and the School acted inconsistently with them for 20 years. In fact, he says if he’s wrong on Winterburn then TVG1 should have been registered back in 2016 (so the last 7 years of stress, expense and fence need never have happened).

Let’s take a moment to think how extraordinary it is that, having written his report (supposedly having carefully considered all the evidence), the Inspector wrote a further Note saying he might have got the key issue wrong and it’s up to the Committee to decide, based on the facts. That is really remarkable, and means the report simply can’t be accepted as it stands.

We provided a mountain of evidence of the Council and the School acting inconsistently with the Avon signs, and this was not contested by the School or the Council. The Inspector’s position seems to be that if there is a sign then even 100 years of subsequent landowners being happy with informal use would not be sufficient to overcome the effect of that sign. Our expert barrister disagrees, as does the Open Spaces Society which said the following (obviously the OSS hasn’t been able to see the report because it was confidential until a couple of days ago):

The Winterburn case says that the landowner must ‘object and continue to object’ to the use. You can look this up for yourself here (see paragraph 37). It is completely clear that there was no continuing objection in our case. Even the Inspector accepted that from January 1990 Avon CC was not objecting to use of the field. 

So the Committee will need to decide whether the Inspector is correct in his conclusion – in the context of the ongoing actions of the Council and the School accepting informal use, were the signs ‘sufficient to make the position clear to those using the land‘? ‘This will be a question of fact in each individual case.’

And actually, it’s even simpler than that. If the Committee considers that two signs are not enough to make an objection to use clear to everyone using the field, on a 23 acre site with over 30 formal and informal entrances, then the land must be registered as a TVG. That’s what the PROWG Committee thought in December 2016, it’s what Bristol City Council argued before the High Court in 2017, and the Inspector has now said this is a matter of fact for the Committee to decide. Take a look below and see what you think! Two signs may have been sufficient for the small car park in the Winterburn case (shown to scale, bottom left) but are two signs enough on a playing field that is 200 times larger? Has any objection been made clear when no one ever suggested to the householders with back gates onto the field, that they shouldn’t use them? Is any objection clear when the signs are left over from a previous landowner, in the mid-80s, and no one bothered to update the irrelevant wording on them?

We’d say clearly not – no one bothered to make an objection clear because no one was actually objecting! Remember that as far back as January 1990 Avon was talking about putting in a kissing gate at the Cheyne Road entrance – no indication of any objection there! The evidence speaks for itself – unfortunately the Inspector wasn’t listening.